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Fire Safety

Fire Prevention Week

Every October the Wetumpka Fire Department is planning on participating in the National observance of Fire Prevention Week. We will continue in our quest to educate the public starting with the ‘little ones’ to ensure that the message of Fire Safety is heard wide and far. We will be visiting the local schools, in particular the Intermediate campus, and talking to the students about fire safety in the home. Every year there are thousands of children that die in house fires because they either didn’t know the dangers or were scared to leave their room. We take great pride in getting the word out to our local children about what to do in the event there is a fire at home and how to react to save themselves as well as others.

For the Adults

As adults it is every one of our jobs to help, guide and teach ourselves what to do in a fire at our home so that we may pass that valuable information along to the children. Here is a list of what we go through with the children. PLEASE take time to do these simple things at YOUR house and we wont have to waste valuable time when we get there searching for occupants, because, if you do these things there wont be anyone inside.

E.D.I.T.H. – Exit Drills In The Home

This is what we preach EVERY October. Have a plan, practice your plan, and know your plan. Sit down with the young ones at home and devise an escape plan from your home. A good plan should include a minimum:

* Two ways out of every room.
* A meeting place for everyone when they are out.
* Designate a place to call the fire department from.

Fire Prevention Week

Fire Prevention Week

SMOKE DETECTORS

A word about Smoke Detectors:

Everyone should have them. Everyone should use them. Everyone should test them. Right now it would amaze you how many smoke detectors in Wetumpka are not in
working order. We go to house fires all the time and find them without batteries, stuck in drawers, or still in the box they came from the store in. Lets get
them installed, working, and make sure they are checked. Twice a year we have to go around the house and change the time on the clocks we own. Slip some
batteries in your pocket for your smoke detectors and change them while you’re up changing the clocks. A smoke detector that isn’t working is just asking for
trouble and irresponsible of us. Oh, and those of you with fire ‘systems’ that hard wired, they have a battery back up that needs to be checked as well.

TEST YOUR DETECTORS!

IT’S THAT SIMPLE! Now, the rest is up to you. Come up with these plans and practice them at least twice a year, once in the daytime and once in the middle of the night. After all, no one knows when a fire is going to happen.

A few things to consider when making your plan of action:  Are there bedrooms on a second floor and is there another way out besides the stairs such as fixed ladders or rope ladders? Are there elderly or bed-ridden people that will need help out?  Are there infants to help get out?

We STRESS to everyone that once you are out and at your meeting place never go back into the house for any reason. It gets hot, smoky, and toxic real fast in there. Stress to children that material things such as books, TV’s, money, and pets can all be replaced. Their life cannot. Once they are gone we can’t get another one.

We hope that everyone will take this serious so that here in Wetumpka we don’t every have to experience what so many other departments do, dealing with the grim task of a child, or adult, that didn’t make it out safely.